USPS Deliver for America

LETTER FROM THE POSTMASTER GENERAL AND THE CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Few organizations so thoroughly and tangibly
engage the public as does the United States
Postal Service.
Nearly every person in America experiences the
Postal Service brand every day—by saying hello to
their mail carrier on their daily rounds, passing postal
vehicles on the street, visiting a Post Office or USPS.
com, using Postal Service mobile applications, or
simply reading their mail or opening a package at
the end of the day. On any given day, the Postal
Service delivers for America—from essential
medicines and COViD-19 stimulus checks, to
packages and election ballots.
The 644,000 women and men of the Postal
Service—who live, work, and serve in every
American community—represent our brand with
every customer interaction and through constant
dedication to our mission of universal service. As
we fulfill our role of binding the nation together—as
we have for 246 years—their commitment ensures
that our delivery platform and services are always a
trusted, visible, and valued part of America’s social
and economic infrastructure.
And yet, our organization is in crisis. Our business
and operating models are unsustainable and out
of step with the changing needs of the nation and
our customers. We have seen steep annual financial
losses in the billions of dollars, unmet service
performance goals, and less market relevancy as
consumer behaviors have changed.

in 2020, our Board of Governors, with a new
Postmaster General and a newly established officer
corps—composed of experienced postal executives
with expert knowledge of our business and
marketplace—moved quickly to address our financial
and operational challenges and forge a bold vision
for transformation.
With a deep commitment to preserve our mission,
Postal leadership began a wide-ranging effort to
address our challenges rigorously, holistically, and
collaboratively to define a new high performing
future. We realigned the organization to streamline
operations and enable the effective planning,
management, and execution of change.
The team evaluated and quantified the many
compounding challenges across the postal
enterprise. We dissected the dramatic shift
from traditional letter mail to package delivery;
underperformance in processing, transportation,
delivery, and retail operations; failure to meet service
performance standards; unacceptably high rates of
non-career employee turnover; and a perilous and
worsening financial situation—marked by $87 billion
in losses over the last 14 years.
The COViD-19 pandemic led to even sharper declines
in First-Class Mail and Marketing Mail and historic
levels of demand for package delivery, dramatically
reinforcing the urgent case for change.
We studied market research; prior internal plans
and proposals; reports from the Office of inspector

General, the Government Accountability Office
and the Postal Regulatory Commission; and many
white papers and documents authored by postal
stakeholders. We received feedback from key
customers and industry associations, our unions
and management associations, and members of
Congress—valuable input from a diverse set
of stakeholders.
Throughout the development of this Plan, the
Postal Board of Governors played an active role in
representing the public interest as we sought to
preserve our ability to fulfil our universal service
mission while transforming our business and
operations. Their collective expertise—in logistics;
leading and working with unions; leading and serving
on boards of large organizations; advising on finance
and restructurings; and working in the political arena
with political parties on both sides of the aisle—has
provided a solid foundation for the Plan.
The resulting Plan—Delivering for America—
establishes clear strategies to quickly achieve
financial sustainability and service excellence. Our
new operating model will dramatically improve
service through strategies aligned to the changing
needs of our customers. We will optimize our mail
and package processing capabilities, improve the
technology and oversight of our surface logistics
network, realign service standards to enable the
best use of our transportation and processing
networks, strengthen our delivery network, promote
measurable operating excellence, modernize
vehicles and infrastructure, revitalize our post offices,
enable long-term postal careers for employees, and
innovate solutions and services for customers.
The Plan’s strategic initiatives are designed to
reverse a projected $160 billion in losses over the

LOUIS DEJOY
Postmaster General & Chief Executive Officer
United States Postal Service

next ten years by achieving break-even operating
performance. We can accomplish this goal
with modest regulatory and legislative changes,
effective use of newly acquired and existing pricing
authorities, operating more efficiently across our
enterprise, and by driving revenue growth through
innovative customer solutions. We seek service
excellence and financial sustainability that preserves
our universal service mission of providing the
nation with six days of mail and seven days of
package delivery.
We look forward to productive discussions with
our stakeholders about our goals for the future of
the organization and the most effective strategies
to pursue them. We will listen and learn and adapt
the plan to take account of stakeholder advice and
guidance, carefully considering advice from the
Postal Regulatory Commission, findings from the
Office of inspector General, and feedback from
our customers. We will adhere to legal, statutory,
contractual, and regulatory requirements as we
implement the initiatives within this Plan.
Most importantly, we recognize that our success
depends upon implementing the totality of the
Plan—which will occur through deliberate, wellcommunicated phases in the coming years—and that
doing so with the broad, bipartisan support of the
Congress will ensure its full and enduring impact.
We present this Plan as another important chapter
for the Postal Service in our long history and
tradition of changing and improving to better
serve the public. We trust you will find this Plan to
be convincing that a high performing, financially
sustainable future for the Postal Service is both
necessary and attainable.